rio gallegos. rain and wind.

i spent three nights in san julian with mariana. the wind never stopped, but in a concrete house, i was invincible!

san julian is an introverted city. by this i mean that it is almost entirely focused on the constant churning of local activity. besides a lifesized replica of magallanes´s boat, there´re really no tourist hot spots. this i liked. the movement and energy was local. it was as if the city ignored me.

i took exactly zero photos of the city.

mariana works extremely long hours. at night we walked along the costanera talking talking talking. another night we drove out of the city and sat on the rocks overlooking the ocean sipping wine and munching crackers. the sunset was breathtaking. talking talking talking. we saw a skunk waddling along the beach. skunk. cute.

another couchsurfing success.

i headed out of san julian toward ruta 3. i hitchhiked, wind in my hair, and caught a pickup truck to the route. there, i stuck out my thumb without success for a while. i wasn´t bothered. i sang and danced and waved to cars going the opposite direction. gotta keep your spirits high.

edu from bahía picked me up in a small red car. he said perhaps 20 words per second and we headed south, avoiding the everpresent guanacos. 2 hours flew by and the conversation never stopped. he dropped me off at cecylia´s family´s house in rio gallegos and we arranged to meet for drinks before i left.

cecylia studies in mendoza, but is back home for the summer. i´m staying with her, her brother lucas, her sister rocio, and her parents. there are also two cats and a dog.

i did an orientation walk around rio gallegos. it started raining. first precipitation since bariloche. i couldn´t find a dry place to sit and have mate. so i just walked. rio gallegos is not a beautiful city, but then again, what city is when it´s grey and rainy?

last night we had homemade gnocchi in a yummy sauce and salad. we watched an argentine movie until i was so tired that i couldn´t understand it anymore.

i wish i had photos to share, but i haven´t taken any since jaramillo.

next stop is rio grande, tierra del fuegooooooooo!

the good, the bad, and the patagonian wind

the patagonian wind should be added to the list of wonders of the world. it is not something to take lightly.

i stayed three nights total in comodoro rivadavia. the third night was due to wind. but i came to a conclusion on that last day about the dirty ugly oil city: once you accept something for what it is, you can start having fun with it. but if you harbor expectations and negative thoughts, you will be unfulfilled and unhappy. for example, those who go to comodoro and expect something it´s not, will leave bitter and unamused. i have accepted comodoro as an extremely unattractive city, but honestly i wouldn´t want it to be anything less. i find love for it and i´m glad i stopped through it´s unpleasantness. on this trip i´m not looking for beautiful tourist cities. i´m looking for real people with real jobs and real struggles. i want to see the good, the bad and the ugly. and i have seen all three in the past two days.

surprising observation of comodoro: there are no plastic bags in the anonima (a big supermarket chain). everyone has reusable bags or just dumps everything into their gas guzzling suvs and drives away.

not so surprising observation of comodoro: there are no verdulerías in the centro.

i said goodbye to maria eugenia, emilio, jesus, laura, fransisco, lulo and machi. my first couchsurfing surfing experience was a success. they took me in as a daughter and let me use the kitchen to my heart´s content. i made granola, rice and lentils, pizza, and sunflower-flax-seed bread. mmm... they joked about signing adoption papers. all in all, i left a happy traveler.

that is, until i got to rada tilly. the mother and father had dropped me off at a gas station and i had gotten a ride in a van. we were approaching rada tilly when i realized i had forgotten my sleeping pad. up until that moment, i had never turned around for something. this time i turned around.

flagged down a car. the elderly couple were surprised i was traveling by myself. it prompted a 14km rant by the gentleman about how people have lost their human values. they drove 2km out of their way to drop me in town. a young couple picked me up and took me straight to the door of the green house. i was extremely grateful and lucky.

jesus drove me back into town and i started hitchhing again. my bad mood melted off when really nice guy drove me to the rotonda. we talked the whole way. as he was driving off, he backed up and asked if i had eaten. he offered me some fish, which i declined and i thanked him for the ride.

a big oil company supervisor picked me up next. we drove to caleta olivia. he was a stressed out big money, big business guy with three cellphones. i was a go-with-the-wind backpacker. there was not much for us to talk about.

he reminded me of new york city, in a way. people who are uncomfortable with silence and who briskly turn up the music if there´s any lag in conversation. people who need to be constantly doing something. people who measure success with number of hours logged at the office. people who run from home to office and back. people who stress when they really don´t have to. people who are not happy. he left me at a gas station at the entrance to town.

no one was picking me up. finally a guy in a pickup took me through caleta and dropped me on the other side of town. caleta had the same feel as comodoro, but with smaller buildings and less glamour.

a pickup with a cute family picked me up. i hopped in back with my bags and we took off. i really like sitting in the back of pickups. wind in my hair. observing what´s being left behind instead of what´s coming up ahead.

we passed oil rigs. churning at the dry desert ground. the blue sea shimmered. the smell was terrible. i had some weird thoughts.

jaramillo. jaramillo thoroughly confuses me. why is it here? why is there no one to be seen? why are all the houses really bright colors? i originally decided to stop by this town of a few hundred inhabitants because it was the closest town to the petrified forest. and because it had a camp grounds.

but the more i walked around, the more confused i got. these are some things i saw:

-a lot of brightly painted houses (orange, shocking lime green, light blue, red and pink, yellow, light purple, dark purple...)

-an almacen where i bought yerba, hot water, and two carrots.

-flat desert extending in all directions.

-railroad tracks.

-boy on bike.

-dogs.

-a handful of people, most of whom waved.

-a shrubby park with sad dry trees where i sat and had mate.

i came to the conclusion that i really liked this obscure little town. i liked it because it was random and seemed to serve no purpose. there was no industry, no shops, no nothing. just small colorful houses in which locals hid from curious strangers like myself. it made me happy.

this was the good. next came the bad.

i pitched my tent, but the ground was sandy and the tent stakes did absolutely no good. i weighed my tent down with my stuff. then the wind came. having nothing better to do at night, i hid in my tent after a few ham and cheese sandwiches. here´s a video i made.

around 1am i woke up. my tent walls were flapping away and i was covered in sand. i tried weighting down the tent flaps, but i got a faceful of sand. i pulled a hankerchief over my face, reinserted my ear plugs, and tried to go back to sleep.

the wind was brutal.

i woke up many more times that night, each time spitting out dirt and wishing for sunrise. sunrise finally came. i made this video.

i think i accumulated perhaps half a kilo of sand and dirt in my tent. it covered everything. it got into everything. around 7:30am i had had enough. i moved everything to the concrete bathroom.

i fought the wind as i carried everything. i cursed. i fumed. but no matter what i did, the wind paid no attention to me and kept right on going.

the owners of the campgrounds arrived at 9am and i asked them for hot water for mate. they gave me a stool that i could use to sit on in the bathroom. i packed my bag, which allowed me to get out some frustration. mate and ham and cheese sandwiches. the wind play background music.

i made friends with a lonely oil worker with a few missing teeth. he told me he came from the north looking for work, but he hated jaramillo. he was saving so he could buy a car and go back home.

finally, the prospect of staying another night in the bathroom pushed me to sit on the side of the road with my bags waiting for cars to pass. you know you´re in the middle of nowhere when you start hitchhiking in the wrong direction due to the lack of signs or any distinguishing landscape features. a car pulled over and while we were loading my monster backpack into the trunk, i found out that i was headed in the other direction.

i crossed the road and began hitching again. wind. wind everywhere.

sandra and teddy, the silent couple in a comfy car with a gps pulled over. hardly any conversation ensued. they took me to fitz roy where they had a parrilla lunch. i sat outside with my ham and cheese. numerous truck drivers invited me to ride with them. i needed a break from truck drivers. so i waited for sandra and teddy.

neither drank mate. that surprised me.

animal alert! i saw guanacos and avestruces!!!

in the end, i didn´t go to the petrified forest as was my original plan. i could have if i had wanted to. i´m sure it would have been nice. but honestly there´s no reason to do something that you don´t feel like doing in the moment. i had had a sleepless night, woke up dirty and in a terrible mood, found a ride to take me all the way to san julian. sure, i could have gone to the forest. but i didn´t feel like i would enjoy it if i did. that´s why i like my flexible travel setup. there´s nothing i absolutely have to do. there´s nowhere i absolutely have to go. if i don´t feel like it, i won´t do it. and there´s no hard feelings and no regrets.

i have no cellphone service in san julian. which meant i couldn´t contact mariana, my couchsurfing host. the cabinas were also not working. luckily the super nice locutorio guy knew mariana and directed me to her house. i arrived dirty and smelly, but she took me in! here i have my own room, internet access, kitchen access, bucket-for-clothes-washing access, and a friendly conversation companion.

i realized last night that i haven´t spoken english since bariloche.

tomorrow i leave for rio gallegos, wind permitting.

Dear Mr. Daniel Kalder,

I cannot find a way to send this to you, so I will write this blogpost in the hopes that you will find it. Probably in vain.

To say I thoroughly enjoyed your book, Lost Cosmonaut, would be a hideous understatement. As I'm sure you receive copious amounts of unwanted fanmail, I'll make this brief. You seem like a fantastically interesting person whom I'd someday like to meet. Improbable to happen, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for creating an entertaining companion to me as I hitch hike through South America.

I wish you moderately safe and wildly magical travels,

Alisa

big oil. big business. big bankaccounts. big ford pickups. big waistlines.

I arrived yesterday to Comodoro Rivadavia, to which I've given the title, the Argentine Texas, an oil rich city with high materialistic values. The city itself is not beautiful, but rather dusty like the surrounding flat desert countryside. I, however, have never really been to Texas, so take this insensitive-stereotype-derived analogy with a grain or two of salt.


I left Puerto Madryn yesterday. I saw nothing of seals, orcas, whales or penguins for which the city is famous during my stay. I didn't go to Puerto Pirámide. I didn't go on any excursion. And I left quite happy. I did, however, meet some rather fantastic people. Andrea, the bubbly sarcastic CouchSurfer and her cynical dry friend whose name I have forgotten. They helped me endlessly to find my awesome thermos, the best thermos in the whole world. Edu, the porteño-turned-barilochense. Irene, the catalana, with whom I shared a long stroll down the coast. Miriam, the porteña-turned-madryleña, and her awesome tartas.

After a terribly stressful morning, about which I'd rather not share details, mate relaxed me and allowed an opportunity to meet a nice young French couple.

On the main road into town I flagged down a YPF pickup that claimed to take me to Route 3. After some super outoftheway errands, we sped under the sizzling sun to the main coastal highway. The driver, whose name and story I didn't get, hooked me a ride with a camionero headed to Comodoro.

Roberto, a scarcely 5 foot truck driver, and I shared mate, sandwiches and stories over the 6+ hour ride south through nothingland. We got along for the most part, but disagreed on some pretty fundamental issues.

Then he asked if I could drive. I laughed it off. I just learned stickshift a few months ago and barely feel comfortable driving a tiny clown car. But he was serious. He told me to grab the wheel, but laughing (a bit more nervously this time) I told him that I thought it would be in both of our best interests for me to stay in the passenger seat serving mates. I don't think he liked my answer, but I didn't let it bother me. The idea of me being in charge of a vehicle carrying 38,000 liters of highly flamable material on a windy narrow Patagonian road. Now that bothers me.

Six hours of driving is tiring. Especially when trying to engage in conversations meant purely to distract from the excrutiatingly dreary unchanging flat desert landscape.

Suddenly!! Oil rigs popping up in the sand!! Oil rigs everywhere!! Horray!!

We passed a sign: "Help us protect our wildlife." I laughed outloud.

We passed depressingly dull city outskirts. Roberto hastily left me at an estación de servicio after making me promise to send him a text message saying I'd arrived in Ushuaia. I found it wildly funny that I arrived to Comodoro in YPF-owned vehicles.

My backpack and I began the several km walk into the centro. The sky was bitterly grey and a strong wind surrounded everything. A wind that threatened to use my backpack as a sail and carry me away. I braced my feet against the slashing wind, closed my eyes against the flying dirt and debris, and cursed the city and my decision to ever pass through it in the first place.

The ugly city enveloped me. I arrived into the centro stumbling, unhappy, dirty, and sweaty. Sitting on the steps outside the Anonima, Emilio and his aquarious friend whose name I don't remember picked me up. They proceeded to ignore me for the entire ride, a ride that retraced my laboring journey into the center, surrendering to much more interesting topics of cars and electronics. I felt destroyed. We turned off into a neighborhood of identical green houses, owned by the university.


In the house, the only one who paid attention to me was the skiddish neurotic dog, Mechi, the size of a middle-aged cat. But I was glad I could drift off into the background to relax.

An asado took form as the family members accumulated. We were 9 in total. This was my first CouchSurfing experience staying in someones house. It was a little overwhelming. Conversation fired around me. I tried to take part, but the topics were out of my reach and my eyes threatened to close, so I chose to sink back into my chair. The futon was super comfy.

The morning was calm. I had my mate and made conversation with the toothless grandfather. We ate vainilla biscuits and he told me of a time when he was a cigarrette-toting, mate-sucking truck driver. At least the sun was out and the wind had calmed.

I walked. A lot. I thought. A lot.

Many people look for beautiful places to take pictures. I've decided that I don't want to take specifically beautiful photos. I want to take pictures of the things that catch my eye. Like the blue bench on the costanera.


Or a red truck in front of the projects.


Or a fallen down street sign.


These things make me pause. And smile.

Another thing that makes me smile are the parks here in Comodoro. I walked down a paseo turistico and was greatly and pleasantly surprised. Amist the trees and paths are old oil extraction equipment. They are the sculptures and the centerpieces to the parks. One might think that this is dreary and depressing. But I find it highly amusing, especially when they are painted in bright colors.




I found myself in a museum. I'm not sure what the museum was about, but it did answer a nagging question I had, "Who in the world is Comodoro Rivadavia...?" Here is your answer.


Tomorrow I head south.

i should have given madryn a chance before i judged it.

there´s a 4km walk from the campsite to downtown madryn. it´s all coast. the water is a spectacular shade of blue. from afar. close up you can allow your eyes to wander over the colorful candy wrappers and scraps of paper. there are a lot of people. comparatively. perhaps if i was previously in las grutas or miami i would be frolicking in the stretches of unclaimed sand, but as it stands i´m a bit disgusted. humans, in large numbers, can be distructive and filthy. especially in hot climates with salt water.

the loud pumping dance music in the campsite kept beat until well after midnight.

traveling alone, again to my parents´ dismay, is perfect for me at the moment. i have a lot of time for thinking and being productive. i enjoy my me-time, a lot. but i do get lonely every once in a while. it´s great incentive to get out there and meet some good people.

the more i travel alone, the more i realize the importance of local contacts. miriam dropped by the campsite and picked me up for lunch. i sat with her, her two daughters, son, and niece eating tartas of three varieties responding to their questions rapidfire. We swapped internet information and she made me vow to write to her in every city to let her know that I was safe and sound. She gave me a long hug when we said goodbye at the beach, saying that she felt that we had connected on a deep level. I met Andrea, from CouchSurfing, on that very same stretch of beach. We drank mates as people accumulated. After they left for work, I stayed on the beach reading until I felt that the sun had gotten the better of me. I love meeting new and exciting people. And I´m doing just that. And in large quantities.

I´m headed south tomorrow to the big-oil-rich-business city of Comodoro Rivadavia. Should be just a transit stop on my way further south, but who knows what I´ll find that might tempt me to stay longer. Chau.

(ps. the computer I´m on won´t allow me to upload photos)

big city girl in a small beach town

I was put off at first by Playas Doradas, a small dusty town with dust-colored-sun-baked-half-finished-concrete-box houses. One main road with a handfull of shops. Cars with obvious parts missing chugging down the street. I´m not much of a beach person. Sweat, sand, sunburns, and the smell of suntan lotion and salt all mixing together. Beaches make me uncomfortable and mildy disgusted. But this is the story of how I fell in love with it.

Juanjo is a friend of mine from Bariloche. He and Nico approached the slackline in the Centro Civico, one fine spring day. From that day forth we´ve slacklined, rockclimbed, made homemade spegghetti, sung and played the guitar, and finished many bottles of fernet. Juanjo is working the summer temporada in a bakery in Playas Doradas. I decided to go for a visit.


Mornings I worked serving mates and making churros and facturas. Afternoons and evenings were spent either walking along or reading by the beach. Nights were back in the bakery preparing for the morning rush. I learned a lot. And worked quite hard.

Here´s Juanjo preparing churros to be fried.

Nati is filling the sugar-covered churros with dulce de leche!


My first attempt at media lunas was a disaster. I eventually got better.


The people at the bakery were hilarious.

I stayed in a two room apartment. Well no, it was a small concrete box with newspapers on the windows. There were 9 or so of us in total. I slept on the top bunk in a room with snoring boys.

I was one of the locals and I loved it. I had a non-commital hectic job and a beautiful backdrop. I worked hard and relaxed hard. I swam in the sea and squatted to take a closer look at washed up sea creatures. I watched rugby and drank beer. I ate a lot of pastries.






Here´s a videoblog I made on the beach.



Yesterday was awesome. Around 5pm, Juanjo and I drove off to the muelle. We encountered a big black monstrosity of a building and a host of abandoned houses.


We were looking though for octopi, for dinner of course. I found a human-made orange thing in the middle of nature, so I climbed it.


Then we rock-hopped to find dinner. I splishsplashed in shallow puddles enjoying the scurrying of little critters. I amused myself with snails hiding in their shells. Juanjo found a small fish and a starfish! But no octopi.




But what he did find was quite a find! He found mejillones. A whole lot of them. Giddy, we jumped around snatching up the biggest ones we could find. We filled two buckets.




The tide was coming in so we headed out.



Mejillones steamed with parsely, garlic and lemon! Delicious!! It made me unexplicable happy to be eating something I had collected from nature. It was fresh and delicious and free. I was so happy.

I guessed Silvio´s astrological sign. That also made me quite happy.

That night we had fernet and improv music night. Then daquiris in town. Then when everyone else fell asleep, Juanjo and I escaped the light polution and star watched. The line of the milkyway was visible and we searched for satelites. I FOUND MY FIRST SATELITE! Usually I have to have them pointed out to me, but I found one this time. And it was gigantic. The stars were falling all around and painting lines in the sky.

The next morning was a slow one. No one had gotten any sleep. I packed my bag, and against objections, said my goodbyes. I would have loved to stay for a few more weeks, but it´s just at the point when I get comfortable that it´s time to move on. Plus my experience there gave me a lot to think about.


I thought I´d have a hard time hitching a ride out of town, but Alberto from Sierra gave me a lift. We had a fantastic conversation that made me feel on top of the world! I said goodbye to my locutorio woman who gave me that room. I looked for Chachi, but he still hadn´t returned from his trip. I stood outside town and stuck out my thumb.

Carlos, or "mono," the truckdriver picked me up this time. What a character! 32 years driving the same Buenos Aires-El Calafate route. He gave me some helpful hints about the roads in the south. He was also muy buena onda!


I got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. There´s a lot of desert in this part of the world. I got picked up and dropped off in the middle of Puerto Madryn. I usually like cities, but it was like a shock to the system. I didn´t like it. It was big and touristy. And I knew nobody. I immediately missed the small town feel of Playas Doradas and my new buddies.

I paid a visit to the tourist office and decided that I didn´t want to be a tourist. I dragged my bags down the street toward the organized camping companies. I still don´t know why I can´t just put up my tent in a grassy yard. Miriam, the porteña turned madryleña, went out of her way to drop me off at the campsite. Meanwhile, I´ll be here maybe for two nights before heading south.

coast.

What I like best about this trip and what sets it apart from all others Ive had thus far, much to my parents dismay, is that I dont have a setinstone plan. I dont have specific dates to be in specific places with specific people. Instead of worrying myself with a set route or timetable, I instead let the trip take me along and I enjoy every moment of it.

Yesterday I left Esquel around 11am headed to Puerto Madryn. I got a ride from a porteño to route 40 where he went north and stuck my thumb south. Chachi, from Sierra Grande, drove me to Tecka. We moved from small talk to bigger talk. He told me a very sad very personal story that had prompted his journey from the coast inland. It made me think. A lot.

Next a couple from Comodoro let me hop into the back of their pickup. I set out with the wind in my hair and watched the Andes disappear behind the increasingly rolling desert dunes. The sun was fierce and gasoline was scarce. I never knew Argentina had so much desert. Half way across, I shared the back seat with the rabbit as we threw the bags in back. The conversation was draining but entertaining. They left me right outside Trelew, heading towards Madryn.

The sun was super strong. Super strong. A 29 year old trucker from Neuquen picked me up. The sun and intense conversations drained my energy. I decided, with his help, to head north. Juanjo is in Playas Doradas, so I decided that I would go there to visit. The land is FLAT in this part of the country. No mountains to be seen. Hard to believe its the same country!!

Arrived to Sierra Grande around 9pm. No cell service. Waited til 11pm for Juanjo, but my drooping eyelids got the best of me. The locutorio woman let me stay in a back room for free.

This morning I woke up and after the morning mate, got a ride from a friendly family to the beach. Super friendly. I found Juanjo making facturas in the panaderia. About time because I was starting to lose a bit of weight. I learned how to make churros. I sat on the beach. I walked on the beach. Made more churros.

Maybe Ill stay a few more days!! Photos to come!

One sunny day...

Today I woke up to a large cloudless sky, the kind of sky that provokes thoughts of hiking. I indulged those thoughts.

Christian, a porteño hitchhiker from my campgrounds, and I took off toward La Hoya, the wintertime ski mountain 12 km from downtown. The day was perfect, blue sky reaching from the snowcovered Andes to the west to the deserty hills to the east.


12 km is a lot. Especially when it´s all uphill. Up up up. Past the Cañon de los Bandidos. Up up up. Filling up our water bottles with chilly snowmelt. I couldn´t believe it when we reached the 6km sign. Only half way?!

We got to the ski mountain´s base, but didn´t want to shell out the AR$25 for the chairlift. So more walking. Up up up. Getting more and more sunburnt as we continued. Until... we came across some guanacos!!!!!


We got up to the base of the third chairlift. Only one more pitch to the top, but by then we were so wiped out. We ulimately didn´t make it to the tippy top, but I had a fantastic time anyway! As seen in this photo.

A friendly man let us take the chairlift down for free!


We walked for a bit towards Esquel, until a friendly family picked us up. I´m really sunburnt and my legs will hurt tomorrow, but I´m so super happy. I really like quaint Esquel with its short buildings, friendly people, and scenic views! I could stay here for a while, but tomorrow I head towards Puerto Madryn... :-)

two autos, three chatas, one national park, four porteños, one bolsonero, four mendocinos, and one gualjainero

... and here I am happily in Equel!


I started out on Tuesday, Jan 12. From right in front of my house John the English-speaking porteño gave me a lift to Ruta 40. The wind picked up and almost blew me back to los coihues. A wonderful porteña couple took me all the way to El Bolsón. I wouldn´t be lying if I said we talked for the entire two hour journey. We also stopped for a picture.


I had such a good time with them and their sweetend mate, I almost didn´t want to get to the hippie hotspot. Shouldered my pack, walked a few hundred meters before Fernando and Carlos picked me up. Again, fantastic conversations and even some homegrown cherries to snack on. They turned off to Maitén and left me at the cruce. Which, it turns out is an unsuccessful place to throw a thumb. So after a bit of singing and thinking in the wind, I shouldered my pack and as I walked, tried to master the art of self-photography.


I´m still working on it.

A pickup of four guys pulls back around and offers me a ride. They´re headed to Parque Nacional de Los Alerces. After some thought, I decide to go with them. I like a little camping and hiking. We tie my pack to the truck and bounce along the ripio.

I pose as an Argentinean to avoid the gringo park price. We set up at the free camping Arrayanes. This is my home.


After building up the fire, we sit around with some fernet and narguilehs. Cocomint is not my favorite flavor I discovered that night. I felt I was babysitting four frat boys, so I went to sleep early. This is me in the morning.


I said by to my Mendocino friends. And we parted ways.


I did a really short hike. I saw coihues, arrayanes, radales, and heard a tremendous number of birds.


Then I met a porteña couple and did the Laguna Escondida/Mirador hike. Great hike. Beautiful views. Here´s one of them.

Then I got hungry and so I packed up and stuck my thumb out and flagged down Jorge, a fishing inspector who worked in the park. He was not really allowed to pick me up in the work car, but I´m sure glad he did. After a quick snooze, mini pizzas, and a few sips of Fanta, I had all my energy back. He dropped me off a few steps away from my new home (no pic yet) at the Hogar del Mochilero. I pitched my tent, took a hot shower, washed clothes, bought a road map, and stopped by a supermarket. Can´t decide if I want to leave for Puerto Madryn tomorrow... or the next day. I´ll see how I feel in the morning. CHAU!